Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, United States
We introduce a new theoretical approach to analyzing the consequences of transitions across role boundaries, drawing on code-switching and approach/inhibition/avoidance (CS/AIA) theory (Anicich & Hirsh, 2017). We spotlight the experience of the managers of foreign subsidiaries that in the context of multinational organizations are positioned in the middle - with responsibilities spanning the subsidiary and the parent company. We present a model that shows how the theory points both to the sources and consequences of stress that such complex boundary-crossing can generate, but also to the opportunities that arise. In so doing, we expose the interaction dilemmas faced by subsidiary managers and advance research on subsidiary managers as knowledge conduits by examining not just whether or what they communicate, but how they do so.
